USA. Inventor John W. Pitts, pathological inventor, notable primarily for his attempts at building a flying car and actually get it off the ground, the “Sky Car”. Source: The Old Motor, http://theoldmotor.com

The “Sky Car” was powered a four-cylinder engine. It did get off the ground by roughly eight inches or so and the “flight” ended. It was obviously staged for the camera and unwisely located right next to a tree.

One of the reasons why such a small proportion of the world cities are working on having more sustainable transportation systems has to do with the fact that these are literally “complex systems”, a category of social and economic interactions which is far more complicated than laying down additional meters of concrete.

A complex system is filled with nuances and surprises, as a result of the fact that all of the bits and pieces that constitute them interact with each other, and all too often yields contradictory results which are quite opposite from what the initial practitiones or policymakers may have wished to bring about. The classic example of this is of course the discredited “predict and provide” approach to transport which famously creates a mindset which consistently favors more traffic. So even with all of the goodwill and hope in the world, many of these policies or approaches achieve results which are contrary to the initial expectations and often deleterious.